


Letters to No One

by Hinn_Raven



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Epistolary, Gen, Humor, Letters, Memory Loss, Missing Scene, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Lucretia writes letters that she can never send over the years.





	1. Davenport

**Author's Note:**

> First multi-chap fic for TAZ! Well this is exciting. 
> 
> I'm really attached to the idea of Lucretia as a writer, and letter writing is always a form that's interested me. There's going to be a chapter for every member of the IPRE crew. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

Lucretia keeps her journals, even after founding the Bureau of Balance. Her impeccable handwriting fills volume after volume, recording the events that have occurred that day in precise, clinical detail. She keeps emotions away from it—they’re not like her journals from the _Starblaster_ , where her affection for her family had dripped from every page. Her attention to detail had captured every gesture, every joke, every quirk.

Now, her precision is there, but she forces herself to not dwell on sentiment. She records events, not emotions. She doesn’t write about the gleam in Maureen’s eyes when she solves a new problem, or Cam’s delighted laughter when he throws fire around. She doesn’t write about the loneliness that’s threatening to claw her apart from the inside out at all times.

Instead, in a fit of sentiment, she tells her friends about them instead.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that the results would be… this. I had known it would be extreme, in your circumstances. What could be left, after all, of a man who loves the stars, who has always dreamed of flying through them, when I had to steal that dream? There are no starships in this world. There is no crew for you to Captain. Your life led you to the IPRE, every step, every moment._

_I had plans, for you, before I realized there was nothing that could be done. There was a ship, and a crew. You could wander the seas like you once did the stars. Not a captain, not at first, but you would have worked your way up. You would have made that crew, that ship, your own. You would be unable to resist, of that I was sure._

_But I can’t leave you behind, not like this. You require a caretaker, at the very least. Maureen has concluded that you’re the victim of one of the relics who I’ve kept on hand out of guilt, or maybe an old companion, damaged by the war. I haven’t corrected her._

_You know this, of course. You were in the room when she speculated about it. You didn’t say a thing at all._

_I finally have word of the first of the relics; Barry’s Animus Bell. I head out tomorrow, with Cam. Maureen has agreed to look after you in my absence; she doesn’t know, but she knows you mean a great deal to me. She is a good friend and a brilliant inventor. You seem to like her and Cam, at least. You keep trying to make tea for them._

_-L_

* * *

The early days are wild and hectic. She finds Maureen first, clever, wily Maureen, with her grand ideas and her bright eyes. She ends up meeting Maureen while chasing down rumors of the Philosopher’s Stone, rumors that lead her nowhere, but find her a friend and an ally. Things she sorely needs, in this new, terrifying world Lucretia has created for herself.

Cam is a friend of Maureen’s; a street artist and sorcerer. He chatters, filling silences that Maureen and Lucretia leave, and is handy to have in a fight. He thinks Fisher is weird, unlike Maureen who is fascinated by him, and he constantly needles Lucretia about erasing the world’s memories of the relics.

The first year is mostly them just trying to find their feet, scrambling to figure things out, chasing rumors and building a crude base. Maureen has grand plans for anti-gravity and a floating base, but they’re not in fruition just yet.

And Davenport is there, every step of the way.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_I’m sorry I left Cam behind. I know you liked him._

_But gods, I couldn’t just—I couldn’t stay in Wonderland. I needed to get out. I’m the only one who knows the truth, I’m the only one who knows about the Hunger, I’m the only—_

_Gods._

_I feel so tired, Davenport._

_How can I do this?_

_-L_

* * *

Wonderland is _brutal_.

Lucretia gives up so much in that horrific game; memories and hit points and spell slots, magical items, and twenty years of her life. Cam, by her side, takes blows as well, and the black, miserable smoke pours out of both of them, until they can’t stand each other. The few rests they manage to snatch are far away from each other, bitter and angry.

Lucretia wishes desperately that Maureen had come with them—or anyone, really. She wonders what Taako would say about Edward and Lydia’s fashions, what Lup would think of their bright lights.

It takes Lucretia a long time to realize there’s no winning Wonderland. There is only surviving. There is only escaping.

She _has_ to survive, she _has_ to escape. What happens to the others if she dies? If the Hunger comes back, and no one is around to at least fly the ship to safety?

If she dies here, IPRE vanishes into history and the Hunger wins. 

“I’m sorry,” she tells Cam. She turns her back on him, and presses the button that will allow her to escape Wonderland.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_None of the others realize you’re not inoculated. They just assume you are._

_You’ve started helping around the base. It’s like back on the Starblaster—you need to be useful, it seems. You can’t stand being still. I should have seen this coming, I suppose._

_You have good days and bad ones. I guess you know that, since you’re the one living it, but it’s…. the days when you speak in sentences, and use words other than your own name, are ones that make me have to stop. Because for a moment, I can believe that you’re normal again, that I haven’t done this to you._

_You just walked in. You made me tea. Even like this, you know how I take it._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia aggressively recruits for the agency she and Maureen dub the Bureau of Balance when she makes her way out of the Felicity Wilds. The first recruit is Killian, but more follow Carey Fangbattle, Brian, Avi, Johann, Leon, Boyland, Robbie, Brad, and so many others. Maureen’s son Lucas graduates from university and joins Maureen in her work.

The base on the moon grows. A wandering warlock named Garfield offers to set up shop. Lucretia has to ban dogs after there’s an incident with the anti-gravity.

She has her reclaimers, her regulators, her researchers, and then the others. She organizes and she plans, carefully crafting her image and her organization.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_I take back every time I laughed with Taako about you being old. Being old sucks. My knees hurt. Why do my knees hurt? My entire body isn’t behaving the way that it should. _

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia doesn’t intend for Davenport to end up her right-hand-gnome.

But he’s by her side so often, so quick to do any task that she asks her actual assistants to do, that slowly, he just takes the role for himself. She never intended to do it—it wouldn’t be fair, to make him to anything. He’s her _captain_ , even if he’s a shell of the man she’d looked up (or down at, more accurately) and admired for a century.

But he seems to like it, looking after her.

So she swallows her protests and lets it happen.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_I think you’re getting worse, the more information I give to Fisher. You haven’t said a full sentence in several months. Maureen’s noticed it too. She’s getting worried. I’m worried she’ll make the connection._

_-L_

* * *

Those long months when Davenport was only able to say his own name were horrifying. Giving more of the world to Fisher, while not inoculating Davenport, was slowly chipping away at him.

Lucretia had no idea what to do—she couldn’t inoculate him, she couldn’t help him. He was part of this world, but he had no idea what any of it _meant_.

She wishes, more than anything, that she could talk to him about it.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_I walked in on you reading these letters yesterday. You didn’t seem to understand them, of course, but I’d foolishly left them out on my desk, and when I came back, there you were, reading them._

_I’ll need to find a better hiding place for them. For all of them really—my collection of unsendable letters only seems to be growing._

_When you’re better again, when all of this is done, I’ll give them to you at last. I’d always planned on Lup reading the letters I wrote to her—the ones that started as a joke. I don’t see why the rest of you shouldn’t be the same._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia takes greater pains to conceal her writings, after Davenport finds them. She hides her journals—the originals from the Starblaster, as well as the new ones. She takes her letters and puts them in a locked drawer.

Later, she will have to worry less—no one else will be able to read them, blurred out as they are by static.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_Maureen is dead. Gods, I just…_

_This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was. It’s been ten years, Davenport. It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

_-L_

* * *

Maureen’s loss hits Lucretia hard. It was so _sudden_ , so senseless. Lucas tells her it was a heart attack, and Lucretia mourns quietly and alone.

Lucretia is in some ways used to death. But deaths are different in this world, this cycle. They’re permanent, they’re meaningful, because this one is supposed to _mean something_.

Lucretia holds herself a bit straighter the next day, her hands refusing to tremble as she holds the Bulwark Staff.

She, Cam, and Maureen had started this enterprise.

Lucretia is the only one left, once again.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_Inoculating you seems to be helping. But I’m worried that it won’t last._

_You clearly seem to be fond of the boys already. That’s nice to see. I suppose, if even wiping your mind couldn’t stop you from recognizing me, somehow, you would also recognize them._

_-L_

* * *

She watches Davenport so carefully, once Magnus, Merle, and Taako arrive. She goes to Fisher’s chamber and sits there for hours, watching the lights flash, and knowing that somewhere, someone is trying to remember things that are forgotten.

She presses her hand against Fisher’s tank, and swallows back tears.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_Magnus, Merle, and Taako saw the Hunger today. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to inoculate you with Junior on the spot and flee this entire world._

_But I can’t. We’ve already lost too much._

_The shield will work. I know it will._

_-L_

* * *

The Hunger’s found them.

Lucretia knows why.

She channels the energy from the Oculus into her staff, to join that of the Gauntlet, and she prepares herself for war.

* * *

_Davenport,_

_Have I made a mistake?_

_Gods._

_We are coming up on the end of things. I’ve just sent the boys to Wonderland. Barry has been haunting them. Several of the guards went missing, and I think Magnus knows something is wrong—he interrogated Pringles in his cell and is probably why the guards are missing._

_And I just…_

_I’m finally starting to think about what happens next._

_There’s still been no sign of Lup. You’ve spent the past ten years at my side, a subordinate, barely able to speak. Lately, all you’ve been able to say is your own name. It breaks my heart every time._

_I don’t…_

_I know you’ll all hate me. How can you not? What I’ve done… I know. I made this decision. I am willing to live with the consequences, because what other choice did I have? There’s nothing to be done._

_I will live with the consequences of what I’ve done._

_But it breaks my heart._

_-Lucretia_

* * *

Davenport’s presence in her office was unexpected. Lucretia is only there herself because she’s got paperwork. Letters of recommendation for people who wish to leave, work orders for repairs, and even just moving people to new quarters, ones not damaged by the Hunger… bureaucracy creeps on, even after all of that.

At least this is easier than going out onto her base, to look at the destruction, both to the Bureau and to the planet below. Later, she will count the dead. Later, she will find time to sit down with two journals and record the events of the day. But not now. Now, she has no time for self-pit, or even self-flagellation. Her tears, her guilt, will not do anyone any good tonight. She has work to do.

But Davenport is here in her office, and she stops writing, frozen in place. Because it’s _him_ again; eyes bright, hair neatly combed in a way he hadn’t managed in ten years, and dressed in new clothes. The two of them haven’t been alone since he’s remembered. Since he’s become Davenport, the captain, again, instead of Davenport, her assistant. Guilt rises again in her chest as she meets his eyes. She realizes, with a start, that he’s wearing his old uniform—he’s found it, somewhere, the red coat with its gold buttons and the IPRE patch. His BOB bracer, she realizes, is gone from his arm. She wonders who removed it.

“Lucretia,” he says, still speaking slowly, as if half afraid it won’t come out correctly.

“Davenport.” She feels hollow, exhausted to her core, her spell slots expended. She hasn’t slept or rested since the boys came back from Wonderland, and even now she’s refused to go to sleep on purpose, afraid of what her dreams will show her.

Whatever it is Davenport has to say, she’ll accept. She’s stretched to the point of breaking, but she owes him this, whatever it may turn out to be.

He moves closer to her, the door closing behind him. He looks nearly as tired as she feels, dark circles blossoming like bruises beneath his eyes.

“Lucretia, I—I don’t know where to _begin_.”

Lucretia isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry. “I’m sure.” Over ten years’ worth of indignities, lobotomized by his own subordinate, separated from his family, memories stolen away from him. Her list of crimes is long, but the ones against him in particular somehow feels more relevant than most of the others.

“I remember it all.” He’s looking right at her. “Ten _years_ , Lucretia.”

“I know.” She swallows her excused, her justifications, her defenses.

He looks at her. “I remember all of it,” he repeats. “I remember finding letters to myself on your desk.”

“Oh,” Lucretia says, startled despite herself. “Yes. I kept them.” She opens a drawer in her desk, one that’s enchanted to keep Angus McDonald out. She takes out the small bundle of letters, tied together with fishing twine. She holds them out.

He takes them from her and tucks them under his arm.

“I need time, Lucretia.”

Lucretia nods, wordlessly, and he walks out the door.

She gets a postcard in the mail, a month later, written in Davenport’s blocky handwriting.

* * *

 

_Lucretia,_

_Weather’s great in this part of the world. Reminds me of Cycle 21, just a bit. Picture on the front is the coastal city I’m in now—pleasant place. Great food, with a lot of shrimp._

_Wish you were here,_

- _Davenport_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm oddly attached to the idea of Cam, Maureen, and Lucretia as the founding three of the BoB. Not exactly canon I know, but I like the tragic trio who fell apart.


	2. Merle

She writes a thousand confessions to Merle, about what she’s planning on doing. She destroys them all, and then keeps working on her edits. She needs to make sure that this is all perfect. She can’t afford to be sloppy here.

She’s out of practice with editing. She’s had no need to; the others go through her journals, writing things in the margins, correcting them. It makes re-reading them agonizing, now that she’s trying to put a coherent narrative together.

She pauses on Cycle 21, and smiles, her fingers tracing lightly over the sketch she’d drawn of Merle, surrounded by shells.

* * *

_Merle,_

_I tried to make sure that the beach you’re on is as close to the other one as I could. I hope you love it._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia loses the following things in Wonderland:

  * Sixty hit points
  * Her physical strength
  * Twenty years of her life
  * A handful of magical items that she’d accumulated over a century
  * Several very powerful spells from her spellbook



She thinks she gave up memories, but a careful scan of her journals reveals nothing.

Lucretia has no idea what it is that she gave up, but she thinks it was important.

* * *

_Merle,_

_I don’t… gods, I’ve made a mistake._

_Wonderland is… I don’t even know how to describe it. I need help, Merle, I clearly need so much more help than just my handful of allies. I sacrificed so much—everything hurts, Merle. I’m curled up in the Felicity Wilds now and I just—I’d give anything for you to be here right now. You can’t heal in Wonderland, and we were in there for… I’m not even sure how long we were in there for. Weeks, I think, but honestly it might have been hours, or even years._

_I gave up twenty years of my life. I feel it, too. But that might be the blood loss talking._

_I left Cam behind. He begged me not to. He said that I’d die out here, in the Felicity Wilds. But I can do this. I know I can._

_I just wish I had you here with me, by my side. I know I can’t, I know it’s impossible, but I wish I could have it anyways._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia, against all odds, survives the Felicity Wilds, with the help of a fighter named Killian. Killian finds her, injured as she is, and offers her a healing potion and a helping hand out of the Wilds.

She pays Killian very well for the service, and then she looks her up and down.

“How would you like a job?” She asks.

* * *

_Merle,_

_I’ve decided that maybe a part of what went wrong in Wonderland is that Cam and I were both magic users. I need to find balance. Not just wizards and clerics, but more people like Magnus. Warriors and rogues, maybe druids, paladins, bards. The seven of us were always heavy on magic—which is bad in a fight. After the high-level spell slots are used up, what are we left with? Magnus hitting things, and the rest of us resorting to using our wands as bludgeons. Or a staff, in my case._

_Maureen isn’t a magic user, but she’s also no warrior. On my way out of the Felicity Wilds, I met an Orcish woman named Killian. She’s a fighter, and she helped me get out of there. I think she’s the start. I can build from this._

_I will find balance._

_-L_

* * *

When she gets back from Neverland, she scries all of them. Or, well, not all of them—Barry is hidden from her, Davenport is the next room over so she doesn’t need to, and she still can’t find any trace of Lup.

She can’t tell much from the spell, but it’s a comfort to see their faces again. To know that they’re still alright.

She wishes they were here with her, reacting loudly to her hair. She can imagine Merle telling her that she’s still not old, not really, and she smiles to herself, for the first time since Wonderland.

* * *

_Merle,_

_I’ve got a source that says you’re getting married. Don’t look at me like that, I’ve got one of your distant cousins in the Bureau, and she requested time off for the wedding. I must admit I’m shocked—you never really struck me as the marrying type. But then again, I’ve never known you in a world without the Hunger, have I? Maybe that’s what you were waiting for. A chance to rest._

_Congratulations, Merle. I’ll try to find a way to send you a proper wedding present, besides giving your cousin the time off._

_-L_

* * *

For Merle’s wedding, she quietly slips down to the beach by the house he and his new wife Heccuba are living in. Hecuba has a daughter named Maevis. Lucretia casts invisibility on herself, and scatters rare shells all over the beach front, hoping that Merle will gather them, and create something wonderful for his daughter.

* * *

_Merle,_

_Your cousin has reported to me in passing that you have a son now. A son. You’re a father! I… holy shit. _

_I know Taako and Lup used to call you “Dad”, but I didn’t expect you to go out of your way to prove them right so soon!_

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia dreams about how it would have gone, if this had happened while the others were around.

She can imagine the confusion, the laughter, the shock, the swearing. She imagines Magnus carving a cradle for Mookie, baby blankets knitted by Davenport, Taako and Lup making increasingly ridiculous jokes as they all angle for the role of favorite aunt/uncle.

She sketches out on a piece of paper, the sky of their homeworld, which she likes to think she would have painted above Mookie’s bed, so he could grow up knowing his home.

She tucks that in with the rest of her letters.

* * *

 

_Merle,_

_Your cousin passed away three weeks ago on a mission, so I’m out of the Highchurch/Rockseeker gossip loop. But I did manage to hear a rumor about a wandering cleric of Pan. Didn’t take long to get a confirmation that it was you._

_I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry things didn’t work out. This isn’t what I wanted for you—wandering from town to town like this, a travelling preacher. I had really hoped that you’d settle down and enjoy that happy ending._

_But maybe that’s not what you wanted to be happy—like I said, you never really expressed interest in marriage, back on the Starblaster. But I just assumed…_

_Was that foolish of me? To assume that you’d all be alright if I just gave you what you wanted? A home by the beach, a place in a small town, a cooking show? Was this naïve, believing things would be okay?_

_Ordinary, every day occurrences seem so… small, compared to the lives that we lived. Food poisoning, divorce, and random acts of violence, completely separated from grand wars over magical artifacts… they strike whenever and wherever they please, not taking happy endings into account._

_I guess I am a fool, thinking I could force the world into giving you the joy and peace you deserve. You’d think it would cooperate more, after we saved it._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia starts an official Bureau of Balance file on Merle Highchurch, to justify using resources to keep an eye on him.

“Is he important?” Brian asks her idly, picking up the file at random from her desk. He has a very interesting report about rumors about a place called Wave Echo Cave, which she’s going over now.  

“No,” Lucretia says absently. Lying has gotten all too easy, lately. She grabs her map of the glass circles, and starts measuring the distance between the closest one and the cave. “But I’m always on the lookout for talent, and Highchurch’s cousin spoke well of him.”

“He sounds like a fool,” Brian says.

Lucretia bristles, but she doesn’t allow Brian to see it. “If you say so,” she says. “Thank you for that report, Brian, I’ll pass this along to the Reclaimers.”

* * *

_Merle,_

_I’m glad you’re with Magnus and Taako again. I feel better, knowing that you have each other’s backs._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia goes to visit Fisher. “They’ll be here soon,” she promises.

Fisher lets out an irritated noise at her. They still haven’t forgiven her for taking their child.

“I’m sorry,” she promises, pressing a hand against the tank. “It will all be over soon.”

* * *

_Merle,_

_You’re here, and I want to cry, because none of you recognize me at all._

_-L_

* * *

 

Merle lost his arm.

Magnus looks older, but Merle and Taako still look like they had on the Starblaster. If she had cast silence on them so she couldn’t hear what they were saying, she could have pretended that she was home once again.

Merle still tangles flowers in his bear, still laughs the same, but even before the arm, there had been something different.

His new arm is made of soulwood, and it is permanent. It will not heal at the end of the year, just like Lup will not suddenly return.

She feels so, so old, looking at them. She touches her face, thirty years older, twenty of which she didn’t even get to live, and misses her family, even though they’re standing right in front of her.

* * *

_Merle,_

_You invited me to a spa. I… I must admit that this was unexpected. We’ll see how it goes. _

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia should say no when Merle invites her to the spa, but Johann pushes her into going. “Boss, you like, really need a break. It’s harshing everybody’s vibe.”

And she’s missed Merle, so, so much, so she lets herself be pampered.

She asks Merle about faith. This is not the first time she’s asked him this question over their century of friendshsip. But she wants to know how his faith has changed, in this world with one sun.

She confesses more to Merle than she should, but of course, the static prevents him from knowing what she’s really saying.

“It’s faith in _you_ ,” Merle says.

She takes a deep breath and drinks her wine.

Merle is right. She has faith in herself.

She _will_ finish what she’s started.

* * *

 

_Merle,_

_How do you always know exactly what to say, even when you don’t know even half of what’s going on? Despite everything, sometimes I think you’re the wisest man I know._

_-L_

* * *

 

Merle brings his kids to the moon. Lucretia has no idea how to handle them---they’re not like Angus, who is most of Lucretia’s experience with children.

“Yeah, Hecuba and I have decided on split custody,” he tells her, chest puffed up. “Being a big hero and all.”

Lucretia smiles. “Even though she now knows you negotiate shirtless?”

“Well, with abs like these, who can blame me?” Merle says. He’s wearing a Hawaiian print shirt that gives absolutely no indication of musculature, and Lucretia laughs.

“I’m glad. Back to the beach?” She tries not to sound wistful.

“Oh absolutely,” he puts a cactus on her desk. “Now, this pretty lady is Antonia. She’s a hardy one, so I think she’ll be able to survive whatever even _you_ can throw at her. But just in case, write yourself reminders to water her once a week.”

Lucretia laughs again, something warm in her chest. “Are you sure that’ll be enough?”

“Look, don’t make me regret this! I’m trusting you with Antonia!”

Lucretia smiles, and reaches out to touch the cactus gently. “I’ve got something for you.”

Her letters to Merle are wrapped with gardening twine. She’d stolen it from the greenhouses years ago in a fit of nostalgia.

He laughs when he takes them. “Only you would think that journals weren’t enough writing.” Lucretia feels her face grow warm. “You’ll be fine,” he tells her.

She smiles. “Thank you, Merle.”

A few days later, a letter shows up on her desk. A few crude drawings, primarily sketches of two young dwarves, but there are a few carefully drawn landscapes. They’re accompanied by Merle’s bold, large scrawl.

* * *

 

_These are Maevis and Mookie. Whatever else, I wouldn’t have them without you._

_-Merle_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are lifeblood! Hope you guys enjoyed this one.
> 
> The comment about the concept of a balanced party is partially inspired by a [Tumblr](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com/post/169705363759/princetpenguin-chalkunderstars) post despairing over the IPRE's team comp. I then noticed while laying this out that the BoB is rather light on wizards. I immediately made extrapolations. 
> 
> Next up is Barry!


	3. Barry

Lucretia can’t find Barry on the Starblaster.

She panics, searching every crook or cranny, calling his name. Eventually, she has to admit that something’s gone wrong.

She finds the body not long after she’s set Magnus up in his new home. Davenport hovers near her, concerned. Panic about all of that still flares white hot in Lucretia’s throat. She hadn’t expected this, and she’s not sure how to handle any of it, but she knows she can’t let him out of her sight.

Lucretia buries the body and carves a message into the marker.

“I’m sorry,” the headstone reads. She doesn’t leave a name, or years of life, because at this point, she can’t remember how old Barry even is.

Lucretia visits it again, a year later, and sees the response.

“I know.”

* * *

_Barry,_

_I suppose it’s only fitting that you and Lup are both missing. The missing lovers. I’d say it was romantic if I had any faith at all that you’re together. But Lup hasn’t come to strangle me in my sleep for making her brother forget her, so I suspect that she’s still missing. Although I know you’ll still be looking, because you’re Barry Bluejeans. I can’t imagine there being anything else you’d do._

_I did have a plan for you—two, actually. I had to throw out the first one when I realized that Lup was not, in fact, going to come back. I’d already made my decision._

_There’s a university for magics in Neverwinter. I had prepared to enroll you in the school. You’d have raced through your classes, of course, because even with all the memories you’re missing, you’re still incredibly accomplished as a spellcaster. I like to think you’d have become a teacher. This world has a stigma about necromancy, but I can’t imagine you’d let that stop you for long—there’d be skeleton cats in your office like back home. You’d probably give them ridiculous names and you’d be the terror of the department._

_Instead, you’re running from me._

_I’m not sure I blame you._

_I hope you find Lup, Barry, I really do._

_-L_

* * *

The Reclaimers keep bringing her back reports of a figure in a Red Robe, and Lucretia knows that there’s only one person it could be.

“Just run away,” she tells them, lacing her voice with every ounce of urgency.

She doesn’t think any of them could actually hurt Barry: he’s a _lich_ , and he’s in his spectral form, from the reports. And even before he’d become a lich, he’d been a powerful spellcaster. But there’s always a chance that they could get lucky, and she’d hate to see any of them get hurt either.

Once or twice, she goes to see if she can find him. To… talk, maybe, or to try and stop him, she’s not sure which. She’s not even sure if she _could_. Wonderland cost her a great deal in terms of her combat abilities.

They never actually meet though. He always flees the scene before she arrives, sometimes leaving small notes.

“You didn’t have to do this alone.”

“Look after Davenport, okay?”

“No sign of Lup.”

“What the fuck happened, Lucretia? You got old.”

She keeps all of them hidden away, with her journals. Signs of a life she can’t afford to dwell on.

* * *

_Barry,_

_I have to say that I can’t exactly thank you for luring my agents into an exploding sandbox, but it was good training for them. They’ve become proficient at evading traps now._

_-L_

* * *

The years pass, and Barry grows bolder, perhaps realizing that as the Bureau grows, Lucretia can leave less and less. He regains his body, then loses it again, and then gets it back.

In some ways, the letters to Barry are the easiest and the hardest to write. He is the one who remembers, who knows who she is. On her birthday, she finds flowers on Barry’s grave. On his, she leaves a bottle of whiskey there.

Lucretia knows, just as he knows, that setting a trap for him would be easy. This grave, or a rumor of Lup, or… she knows him better than anyone in the world, right now. Better than he knows her.

 _She_ has changed, has been changing ever since that awful cycle. She has crystalized, aged, and changed. She has ripped away what she has loved most, to save the world, because as much as she loves all of them, she can’t accept the cost that keeping them together would be.

The Lucretia who left her home to write down the biographies of six great people would never have imagined this. She was never one for leading, never one for standing in the spotlight. Her hair is as white as ever, but she has aged. The rest of them have not, or not as much, at least. And Barrry has not aged at all, in the few glimpses she catches of him.

Barry is the same as he has always been; kind and intelligent, a dork to the core, and desperately in love with Lup. She doesn’t always know what he’s planning, but she still can predict him well enough to make guesses, when she knows what his specific goal is.

But this is a space that’s… _theirs_. Lucretia has robbed him of the Starblaster, of home and family and everything else. She’s betrayed him already.

She never sets a trap.

She keeps leaving bottles of whiskey on his grave.

They don’t always disappear, but they usually do, and she takes comfort in that. It means he hasn’t disappeared. He’s still there, unlike Lup.

* * *

_Barry,_

_You know, if you’re trying to hide from me, using your real name is probably not the best method._

_-L_

* * *

The Bureau gets bigger and bigger, and Lucretia eventually designates one person to keep an eye out for Barry. Not that he knows that’s who he’s looking for: she tells him he’s looking for various figures who she believes are in possession of one Relic or another.

The resulting reports he gives her are… interesting.

* * *

_Barry,_

_“Sildar Hallwinter?” Really?_

_-L_

* * *

Out of all of the wizards on the Starblaster, Lucretia and Barry were the two with the most in common. The two of them had been planners, mapping out their diagrams carefully, discussing theory into the late hours of the night. He’d helped her do the equations for the earlier versions of the shield, even though his expertise had never been Abjuration.

She misses him now, trying to do the exact calculations for the newest version of the shield. It’s difficult, trying to figure out the proportionality of power that her staff has compared to what the full Light of Creation will have.

Barry would know, she thinks, balling up another piece of paper and setting it on good fire for measure.

She misses him deeply, in times like this.

* * *

_Barry,_

_I’ve heard disturbing rumors of a Grim Reaper chasing a lich across several cities. I really hope it’s not you—you’re usually smart enough than to go antagonize the Raven Queen directly._

_I will admit though, that I have very few hopes, because I do in fact remember the incident of you animating every skeleton in the dinosaur exhibit._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia has, on occasion, considered leaving her letters on the grave with the bottle. She decides against it. It would leave her too vulnerable, she thinks. She doesn’t censor herself in these letters, baring her soul as well as her base.

She does, however, in a flight of fancy, carve the name “Sildar Hallwinter” into the gravestone.

There are even more flowers on the grave for her birthday, that year.  

* * *

_Barry,_

_I legitimately do not understand how you keep getting yourself a new body. I can’t even talk to Leon about it (he’s my artificer, yes, I have an artificer now, we’re growing as a secret society), because I’m pushing a narrative about all the Red Robes being gone, and admitting that there’s a Red Robed lich that keeps popping in and out of bodies doesn’t really help that narrative, does it?_

_-L_

* * *

There are times when Lucretia really, _really_ wishes that Barry was here, simply so that she could try to kill him herself.

She does her best to keep the fact that there’s a Red Robe still running around on the downlow, but rumor mill is constantly working.

Barry himself does not seem to be sympathetic to her plight, often going out of his way to make his appearances… dramatic.

* * *

_Barry,_

_If you’re going to try to break into my moon base, could you at least be subtler about it? It is very difficult to explain to my people why a lich in Red Robes tried to crash land in the middle of the quadrangle! _

_-L_

* * *

After some careful consideration, Lucretia ends up looking into methods of keeping liches out of her base. She’d thought making the moon float would be deterrence enough, but she’d underestimated Barry’s stubbornness.

Which was stupid of her, really. The guy had literally learned to die repeatedly just to say “fuck you” to the Hunger.

* * *

_Barry,_

_For fuckssakes Barry, that wasn’t an invitation for you to try to possess Maureen._

_-L_

* * *

Maureen ends up having Opinions about liches, and the fact that Lucretia has been fighting one for the past few years.

She does, however, help Lucretia investigate ways of lich-proofing the base, so Lucretia figures it’s not all bad.

* * *

_Barry,_

_I know what you look like. I can’t believe you tried to be recruited. I realize we hadn’t seen each other face to face in five years, but I’ve literally spent a century looking at your face. Did you forget you could cast Disguise Self? Is this what happened? Barry, I legitimately do not understand what you’re doing here._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia leaves a standard Bureau of Balance training kit on the grave that year, because she’s nothing if not petty.

* * *

_Barry,_

_ I will get a cleric to bless this entire fucking base so help me Pan. _

_-L_

* * *

Magnus, Merle, and Taako are in her throne room.

Lucretia keeps herself very still, and listens intently to them recounting their tale. She offers them a job, and tries not to let the pain show on her face.

Later, she learns about Barry Bluejeans, and the pen she’s holding breaks in her hand.

* * *

_Barry,_

_Were you looking for Lup? Is that why you were with Gundran Rockseeker? But if so, why didn’t you go with them to the Cave?_

_I don’t understand, Barry. What were you trying to do? _

_Taako has her umbrella. You apparently were killed by the Gauntlet. I haven’t heard anything about your lich form since, but…_

_I hope you’re okay, wherever you are. You’re still my family._

_-Lucretia_

* * *

Barry shows up in her office a few days after the Hunger, holding a bottle of whiskey and smiling at her. “I hear the memorial was rough.”

The smile is strange; it feels like a forgiveness that she doesn’t deserve. But all she says is “Oh. Yes, it did.”

There were a lot of dead. And all Lucretia could do was stand there, suffocating under the weight of the guilt. That, and make speeches.

Barry sets down two glasses on her desk. “It’s been a while since we’ve done this.” It had been an old tradition that the two of them had started, back on the Starblaster. After a bad cycle, they would drink and mourn the dead. They hadn’t been able to for… well, a while, even before Lucretia had wiped his memories and then begun a decades long hunt.

He pours two generous helpings.

She picks up her glass and holds it up. “To the dead.”

He clinks his glass against hers, and gives her a smile that’s wider than she could possibly deserve. “To victory.”

Three glasses in, they’re sitting on the floor, laughing and crying as they recount stories of friends from old cycles. Lucretia forgets herself as she starts telling him about Cam, and leans forward to ask the question she’s wanted to for years now.

“Okay Bluejeans, I want to know. _Sildar Halwinter?_ ”

There’s a beat, as he squints at her in confusion, then clarity blossoms on his face and he starts to _laugh_ , seemingly unconcerned about her bringing up that period of time when they’d been enemies. “Look, I was in a hurry, okay? The recruiter needed a name, and I realized too late you probably had warned them about Barry Bluejeans, so I… improvised.” He rubs the back of his neck, laughing sheepishly. “Sildar was my grandfather’s name, and I was by a place called Winter Hall.”

 _"That_ was an epic saga of goofing,” Lucretia says. “I’m pretty sure that one got a mention in my letter to Merle as well as yours.”

“Letters?”

Lucretia flinches, suddenly feeling less pleasantly warm, as if the alcohol is wearing off far too soon. “I wrote you letters. While… while we were separated.”

“Oh,” he says. “I mean, I know you used to do that, but…”

“I missed you,” she says, the raw honesty in her voice cringe-worthy. Throwing out her arm, because she’s far too drunk to try to stand up, and doesn’t give a shit about spell slots, she uses thaumaturgy to open the drawer where she keeps her letters to Barry. Levitate pulls them into her hand, where she can hold them out to him. She’s bound them all together in black ribbon patterned with skulls. She’d found it in Fantasy Costco, and had bought it on an impulse, reminded horribly of Barry. One of her drawers is full of small things like that; sea shells that reminded her of Merle, cookbooks and strange utensils for the twins, ships in bottles for Davenport, odd carvings for Magnus, and the strange and macabre for Barry Bluejeans.

He takes them from her, and undoes the knot in the ribbon immediately, spreading out the letters all over the floor, like he’s studying them.

He’s quiet for a long, long time as he reads them. Lucretia can see them all clearly; her sketches that she drew in the margins, the careful descriptions of things she saw that she thought would interest him, and of course, her confessions both big and small.

Quietly, Lucretia pours herself another drink, not sure why she’s surprised he’s reading it right away—Barry has always been a reader and was in fact banned from bookstores on sixteen planes they’d visited.

Finally, he starts laughing, and Lucretia jumps as he wraps his arms around her in an embrace.

“You really are something, Lucretia,” he says, and he doesn’t let her go, so they fall asleep like that, spread out on the floor of her office, surrounded by her letters, watched over by the fully revealed portrait of the seven of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit about a lich being chased by a Grim Reaper (yes, that's totally Kravitz) is a shout out to the great fic ["I Saw Seven Bounties"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12827445/chapters/29285847) by jothending, as well as the amazing [textpost ](http://connerkcnt.tumblr.com/post/167792221846/i-want-a-10k-fic-thats-just-kravitz-chasing)that inspired it. I'm really amused by the idea of Kravitz accidentally helping Lucretia on that front. 
> 
> There is in fact a spell called "Clone", a level 8 necromancy wizarding spell, that produces the effect that the pod does. I kind of figure that the pod is a sort of enchanted object that just uses the spell, and that Barry and Lucretia both don't know about its existence, since the pod itself is treated as magical by both Garfield and Barry.


	4. Lup

Lup leaves, and that’s when things start to fall apart.

Lucretia had been considering her options even before then. She’d fed a fight after dinner to Fisher as an experiment, trying to see if it would work. Tempers had cooled instantly, the fight forgotten.

Would that work for the whole world?

She tries to scry for Lup, without luck once again. Taako had made her scrying bowl for her; a beautiful, intricate thing of silver. Merle had blessed it, so the water was holy. It was a perfect tool for scrying, even if Divination wasn’t her strong suit.

But Lup is hidden, wherever she is. She hadn’t really expected that to change, but she could hope.

Then, Lucretia looks over the world.

It feels as if the very face of the world has been changed. The battles and wars are ripping apart fertile fields. Circles of glass are scattered where villages used to be. Someone has turned a lake to jello. There are bodies without souls left in piles. A forest walks east, marching towards an enemy army. Impossible creatures climb mountains. Somewhere, time itself is changing.

She can’t see her staff tonight, but Lucretia knows it’s out there.

There are more people, dying, even tonight. Dying for these objects, these talismans that are keeping them safe from the Hunger. They’re squabbling over them, and people are _dying_ , for a power that none of them could ever hope to wield.

Lucretia pours the water into Fisher’s tank and covers her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

* * *

_Lup,_

_My staff was spotted in the middle of the ocean yesterday. Literally in the middle of it—someone created a bubble in the center of the sea, to get to sunken treasure at the bottom of the ocean. It displaced all the water. There have been tsunamis and floods all over the coasts. Three hundred people are dead. I feel sick to my stomach. There’s been no sign of your Gauntlet though. Is that what you were up to? If so, I’ll have to ask you for tips when you get back._

_You’ve been gone three days now. I know elves have a different sense of time than humans, but “Back soon,” usually doesn’t mean quite this long. Barry and Taako are going crazy with worry. The rest of us are worried too, of course, but those two… you’re so important to them Lup, and this isn’t supposed to happen anymore. That’s the whole point of being a lich, remember? _

_No, it’s not passive aggressive to leave this letter on your bed for you to find when you get back._

_-L_

* * *

The ruler of Neverwinter declares war on three neighboring kingdoms at once, driven mad with the power of the Oculus.

He’s assassinated three days later, with the Oculus vanishing, but the war rages on.

Lucretia scries for Lup again and finds nothing.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Where are you?_

_-L_

* * *

A dragon claims the Gaia Sash for its hoard, and the mountain it lives in writhes with poisonous vines, threatening anyone who would dare to try to enter its home.

She tells Magnus this. In any other life, he’d immediately be excited, going off to help fight the dragon, but now he frowns.

“Maybe the dragon can keep it away from the rest of them, right?” He asks, biting his lip. “Maybe it’s safer there.”

Lucretia gets Taako to transfigure the mirror and tries to scry through there.

Taako pretends he’s not looking over her shoulder, trying to see anything, while she fails over and over again, until her spellslots are depleted.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Please come home. We miss you._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia can’t tell if the history books are changing.

She goes through her journals, taking notes, but the nature of the Chalice is so thorough, that her notes themselves would change as history does.

It’s terrifying, terrifying in ways that Lucretia can’t possibly describe.

“Maybe,” Barry says, eyes steely, “If we scry at the same time, we can get through.”

Anything is worth a try, so he uses the mirror, while she uses her bowl.

“Do you think she doesn’t want to be found?” Merle asks them.

“No!” Barry says. “She said she’d be back soon. She’s just… delayed.”

Lucretia says nothing at all.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I… I don’t know if I believe you’re coming back any more._

_What do we do now?_

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia fills the bowl with holy water, and then stops.

There’s no point, she realizes. There’s no point at all. She’s scried for Lup, for her robes, for the necklace she wears that Barry made her, for the ridiculous umbrella staff she carries. Lup, wherever she is, can’t be reached, can’t be found. Maybe she doesn’t _want_ to be found.

Something bitter and awful twists in Lucretia’s stomach at that. Tears prick at the corner of her eyes.

She throws the bowl across the room, and weeps.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I’m sorry._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia is alone now.

She wonders if, wherever she is, Lup is alone as well.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I don’t even know why I’m writing this. It’s silly. A flight of fancy, maybe._

_You used to tease me about writing letters home, on the Starblaster. When I was a child, after my mother passed, I used to write letters to her. Letters I could never send. Maybe it’s a form of grieving._

_I set Taako up with his own cooking show. I’m sure your double-act would have been far more impressive, but he’s doing very well for himself. I attended, using Disguise Self. It’s an impressive production._

_I’ve gathered a few allies—a sorcerer named Cam and a scientist named Maureen Miller. I’ve got a few solid leads on the location of the relics. Hopefully, this won’t take long._

_-L_

* * *

The Gauntlet hasn’t been seen since Lup disappeared, Lucretia realizes, going through the records. Records are more complicated to track now that the rest of the world has forgotten about the Relic Wars, but circles of glass are still noticeable.

And there haven’t been any since Lup vanished.

Lucretia frowns at that.

What had Lup been trying to do?

* * *

_Lup,_

_There’s still no trace of you._

_Barry’s energy signature has been located again, but there’s no sign of you at all._

_I’ve set Killian, one of my best, on your track, tracing the circles of glass. You were very focused on the trail of destruction that your gauntlet left, so maybe that’s the way to go about it. But she has had no results for me, no whispers of Red Robes or Liches or umbrellas or skeletons._

_She did locate a tenacious dragonborn rogue named Carey, who she has recruited to assist in her search. I suspect you’d like them._

_Taako is doing well; his magic show is touring the Underdark. I gave one of my agents down there a ticket as a Candlenights bonus. She swears up and down it was a “kick-ass” experience._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia thinks that Lup would have loved the idea of Taako having a show. She would have wanted in on it, obviously, but the show itself seems to be something that she would have liked.

Lup uses— _used_ , the tense still sneaks up on her sometimes—a little less magic than Taako in the kitchen, although she definitely showed off whenever it was time to flambé something.

Lucretia took careful notes of the recipes that Taako used on the show she attended, and recorded them for Lup. It was an empty gesture, she knew. These were letters she could never send.

But it felt right, somehow, preserving that little tidbit for her.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Something’s happened with Taako. I don’t know what, exactly. I’m sending an agent to investigate—I’ve concocted a lie and claimed I believe that it’s about the Bulwark Staff, even though the Staff is safely with me._

_Gods, Lup, I wish you were here._

_-L_

* * *

Glamour Springs, Lucretia knows, without a second of a doubt, is her fault.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Taako apparently killed a large part of the town of Glamor Springs in a magical accident._

_I can’t believe it._

_He’s safe, he’s far away from all of it, but… oh Lup. I don’t know what to do, or how to help him. I wish you were here. You’d know what to do._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia thinks long and hard about her options, after Glamour Springs. What could she possibly do, to make this right?

She wishes Lup were here to talk to.

But that’s impossible. Even if Lucretia hadn’t done what she’d done…

Lup was already gone, long before Lucretia had fed her to Fisher.

* * *

_Lup,_

_He’s with Magnus and Merle. He’s safe._

_-L_

* * *

Seeing the three of them together in her scrying basin makes it easier for Lucretia to breathe, even though she senses, somewhere in her bones, that this is the beginning of the end.

* * *

_Lup,_

_You all were too good at what you did, that’s the problem. The artifacts are too well hidden to find or too powerful to resist— we could resist them, but no one else seems to be able to. I was certain that clear-minded, strong-willed, or even just simple and good individuals would be able to resist the thrall. But it seems that it’s not the case. _

_I’m supposed to oversee things. And… in all honesty, my time in Wonderland have left deeper scars than I’d expected. My hitpoints haven’t quite recovered, my dexterity modifier is in the negatives, and aging twenty years has affected my physicality more than I expected. And my specialty was never offensive magics, in any case. I went on a mission to go after the Oculus, and nearly died. Maureen was furious at me. I can’t tell her that I’m the only one who can touch the relics safely, so I couldn’t provide an explanation as to why I’d even gone._

_“You’re not a young woman anymore!” She tells me, and it stings. It’s true, but it stings. I’m sure you’re laughing—you, Taako, and Merle. What is twenty years, to elves and dwarves? It’s horrifying to think that I’m now older than Davenport, in terms of relative age._

_I need help, Lup. ~~I need our family back.~~_

_But I don’t know how to get it._

_-L_

* * *

Taako walks into her throne room, carrying a familiar red umbrella, and for a moment, Lucretia nearly calls out a different name.

* * *

_Lup,_

_He’s here, he’s safe, and I’m going to keep him that way. I promise you this._

_They were with Barry—I don’t know how he got involved in all of this, but they reported that he died when the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet was used on the town of Phandolin. I’m sorry Lup. The entire town died. Barry wouldn’t have remembered anything while he was human, but he’s definitely a lich again—he keeps switching back and forth, in a way which I don’t understand._

_Taako has your Umbrastaff. He found it with your skeleton, near where the Gauntlet was. I suppose that provides half the answer, but that does not tell me where you are. Where would you have gone, after dying? How did you die? Are you with Barry? But I can’t believe that you would have left Taako alone, all this time. Holding your staff in my hands, I was left with more questions than answers. I gave it back to Taako. It’s only right._

_-L_

* * *

She lies to Taako about the Umbra Staff; she’s too busy reeling. It’s for the best, though, because what could she say?

“I stole your memories of your sister, and this is her umbrella, and you say you found it on her skeleton, and I guess she’s dead, but her lich form isn’t around either, and I’m sorry.”

No.

There’s nothing to say to that.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Seeing Taako without you is uncanny. I keep expecting to hear you speak up. And he’s… different, without you. It’s not even like those times when you died, and he was without you for the rest of that year. There’s a hole, but he doesn’t even know it’s there. It’s all wrong. They’re all wrong._

_Although I must say you’d probably approve of the way that he’s tormenting Leon._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia knew they were different. It was impossible not to notice; they carried themselves differently. Despite being ten years older than she’d ever known them, they seemed… smaller, somehow. Like they’d collapsed in on themselves, becoming sharper, stranger, and weaker in the process.

Her heart aches, and she knows she has only herself to blame.

* * *

_Lup,_

_The boys saw Barry. He killed Capt. Captain Bane to protect them. I’m terrified that he’s so close to them—he could so easily throw everything off. But I’m glad they’ve got someone else watching over them._

_-L_

* * *

Lucretia sneaks out and goes to Wave Echo Cave.

There’s no trace of the body, of course.

Lucretia kneels there anyways.

It makes sense, why she could never find Lup’s body, here. Wave Echo Cave is ancient, and the vault is enchanted with protection spells, spells that would absolutely have covered Lup’s body, making her undetectable to divination magic.

“You were hiding the gauntlet, weren’t you?” Lucretia asks the cave, which had served as the tomb for one of her closest friends. “And somehow it killed you. But what happened next?”

The cave has no answer.

Lucretia carves Lup’s name into the wall of the cave. A little memorial, a grave. It’s the least she could do.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I heard him through the Sending Stones. He’s a lich again. He also doesn’t seem to know where you are. He tried to warn them about the Hunger. I can’t even blame him—I don’t remember if I told you about this, but the boys reported that they saw the Hunger’s Eyes on Midsummer. Uniting the relics with the Staff has clearly started… something. I just hope they’re able to gather the others in time._

_Gods, Lup, where did you go?_

_-L_

* * *

After Candlenights, Carey and Killian submit a written report about the events in Lucas’ laboratory. Magnus shows up to deliver his own in person.

Lucretia goes very still when Magnus talks about the Reaper named Kravitz, hunting them for their deaths. Deaths he doesn’t understand, but oh, Lucretia does.

She takes careful notes about Legion—a being made of souls who’d tried to escape the Astral Plane. And when Magnus is done speaking, she goes to work, searching through the massive library she’s gathered, looking into the Reapers.

She’d heard of them briefly, of course—hunting necromancers and the like. But Barry had been outmaneuvering one for years now, and she’d never… she’d never put it together. She’d never taken into account that Lup, even alive, would have been a target for a Reaper.

Is this what happened to Lup? Lucretia thinks, staring at diagrams of skulls and scythes. Had Lup died, and then encountered a Reaper? Taken by surprised, perhaps, and been taken in. It would have to be a surprise attack; Lup is powerful, enormously so, more powerful than the rest of them.

Was Lup part of the thing called Legion? Lucretia can’t imagine that Lup would have consented to stay dead, apart from her family if she saw even the slightest of chances.

She can’t prove it, of course. It’s just a theory.

But it’s a better theory than she’s had, since Taako showed up holding Lup’s umbrella.

* * *

_Lup,_

_I’m so close I can almost taste it. _

_I wish you were here to see it._

_-L_

* * *

Lup’s name has been written in fire on a wall.

Lucretia stares at it, her heart hammering in her ears.

Barry. It has to be. He possessed Pringles, he must have set some magical traps or timed spells. Trying to stir some memories, maybe, or just… reminding Lucretia of her sins. It could even be both. Barry’s good at multi-tasking as well as multi-classing.

She reaches out a hand and extinguishes the flames. She’ll have someone come in hear and mend the walls tomorrow, before too many people see them.

She goes to Junior and kneels before them. They sing a few notes of their song, glad to see her, as always.

This is risky, she knows, but she’s so, desperately close, and she can’t risk things going off the rails now.

She writes Lup’s name on a piece of paper and gives it to the juvenile Voidfish.

She bows her head and cries. Junior lights up and swirls, content in their tank.

* * *

_Lup,_

_Your brother is dating the Grim Reaper. He thinks I don’t know, but Angus told me that he spotted them on a date at the Chug-and-Squeeze._

_I have no idea what to make of this. I wish you were here to tease him about it—I miss your voice._

_-Lucretia_

* * *

“Lucretia.” Lup’s lich form is familiar and comforting, which should be strange. But instead, Lucretia finds herself smiling, despite herself.

“Hello Lup.”

Lup floats forward, her robes fluttering dramatically as she does so. They don’t _have_ to do that, but Lup always makes sure that they do, because she thinks it looks _super cool_.

Lucretia’s smile fades as she realizes that this is not the Starblaster, and this is not just any Lup. This is a Lup who’s been trapped in an umbrella for ten years. And maybe that’s not Lucretia’s fault, but… there’s still a tension in the air, and it’s because of Lucretia and what she did.

“I can’t believe you fed Fisher your journals, babe.” Surprisingly, it’s lighthearted. “You loved those things.”

“I saved your doodles,” Lucretia offers. “I only fed Fisher summaries.”

Lup perks up. “Really—that’s fucking sweet, I wanted to show Krav that one I did of that shrine of the Raven Queen that we found in Cycle 44.”

Lucretia smiles and goes to her bookshelf, which is concealed behind the wall.

“Fuck, there’s even more of them!”

It’s easy to tell when Lucretia did… what she did. Taako had always made her journals, after the first cycle. They were bright and colorful and well-made. Each one was unique, with Taako stomping his aesthetic on them, inspired by whatever they had found in that cycle, making it easy to identify when each one was.

Now, Lucretia’s journals are simple things, all identical to each other. She keeps them neat and organized, with labels along the spines that help her know which one she’s looking for. The change from colors to brown leather forms a clear, stark line that shows her betrayal.

She hands over the journal Lup wants to see, and then hesitates, before opening up the locked drawer in her desk and handing over a thin, leather bound volume. Her letters to Lup from over the years, carefully collected into that book.

“I wrote these for you,” she says, awkwardly.

Lup takes the two volumes, clearly curious. “I’ll bring this one back,” she says, hefting the neon pink volume.

“Thank you,” Lucretia says.

Lup gives her a quick grin, and then waves her skeletal fingers. “I’d hug you, but you know. Paralyzing touch.”

Lucretia smiles. “I hear Barry’s working on that.”

Lup can’t smile, but Lucretia knows it should be dazzling. “Hell yeah! He’s got it covered.”

* * *

Lup returns the journal. She doesn’t return the letters.

“I’ll get back to you on those,” Lup says.

“Take your time,” Lucretia responds, holding the journal against her chest. “Take all the time you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia theorizing that the Reapers got Lup is a fun idea I've had for a little while; they explicitly go after liches, and don't like the IPRE crew for dying all the time, so I kind of figured that, once she learned more about them after Crystal Kingdom, Lucretia would come to that conclusion. 
> 
> Lup can't say her own name without static in the final Lunar Interludes, but Barry can say it during Crystal Kingdom. Given that Lup burned her own name into the wall of the BOB, I concluded that Lucretia might have done some damage control, inadvertently making things harder down the road. 
> 
> Magnus is up next!


	5. Magnus

Lucretia pulls the Bulwark Staff out of the sea.

It whispers in her ear—promises of invincibility, of protection. It’s full of the magic of abjuration—it is the subtlest of the schools, lacking in flash and glamour in the way the others have.

She would never say it was harmless—none of the Relics could be called that. But she does think it’s… gentler, than the others. But in some ways, that makes it more insidious. It does not offer raw power, or wealth, or an army. In many ways, it speaks to the kindest of souls, or the timidest. It offers them defense, it offers them protection. And then, like all the Relics, it brings destruction.

She wraps her fingers around it, shoving aside her creation’s attempt to enthrall her. “None of that,” she says. She raises it into the air, and tries to call up the shield.

But it’s not strong enough, despite the power flowing through her veins. It only carries one-seventh of the light. It needs the full thing to do what she needs to do.

Abjuration is the school of protection—Magnus, she thinks, would have chosen it, had he taken to wizardry. In the past, she’d used her powers to protect her family.

Now, she will protect the entire plane.

She wraps mage armor around herself, bolstered by the staff. She closes her eyes and breathes.

She can do this.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_Fisher misses you. They sing every day, playing with the wooden ducks. One of my recruits, a bard named Johann, is the only one who can calm them down, by playing music for them._

_I don’t think Fisher understands why you haven’t come back. Or why Davenport is different. Their mind is so different than ours… I’ve tried to explain, I have. I’ve told him you’re happy. You’ve got a shop now, I hear. The Hammer and Tongs. It’s odd to hear you referred to as an apprentice, but I suppose you must re-learn all those years of skills._

_-L_

* * *

 

Every breath she takes hurts. The last game broke her ribs, and she has no spells that could heal her. Barry had, one cycle, followed Merle around, ad then joined a local temple, becoming a cleric, to help Merle with healing. Lucretia should have done the same; even though a life of faith is not for her. But healing spells would certainly be useful, right now.

She leans against a tree, wiping blood away from the corner of her mouth. She needs to get out of the Wilds, to a cleric or a temple or… something. She has to make it out of here, otherwise she’d have abandoned Cam for nothing. She will need to set up contingencies, when she gets back. Tie her wards to her death, so Barry can find Fisher. Leave a letter for Maureen to find, explaining, listing her friends’ locations, because only Lucretia can cast the barrier spell, so her plan goes to ashes if she dies.

She can’t do this again. At least not until she’s stronger. She’ll need to be more careful. Hire people to hunt the relics for her. And save Wonderland until last, because she can’t send anyone in there until they’re ready.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_A rebellion? Really?_

_I don’t know why I’m surprised; I’ve seen you rail against injustice in far too many worlds. But I suppose I had hoped I’d managed to find you a place where you wouldn’t need to protect people._

_Good luck Magnus. Fight well._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia carves sigils and wards into the foundations of the base which will one day become the Moon Base. She is still an arcanist, despite her own wariness of those skills. She protects them from scrying, sets down powerful wards against teleportation, and everything else she can think of.

It takes weeks, expending her spellslots, until she’s satisfied. She crafts glass spheres to travel in and bracers. She makes a grand tank for Fisher and puts a glamour over the portrait of her family, which she hangs in her office.

When Maureen visits, she whistles, looking at the work that Lucretia has done.

“You’re a lot more powerful than you let on, aren’t you?”

Lucretia smooths down the elaborate folds of her robes. She wasn’t that powerful, not really; she had nothing on Lup or Barry or Taako or Davenport. She was good at what she did, but she was just an abjuration specialist. She was simply making a base that was meant to survive, to protect its inhabitants. She thinks that Magnus would have approved. “I survived this long, haven’t I?”

Maureen doesn’t quite realize how impressive that is. She could know—she’s the only person who could, inoculated as she is.

But Lucretia fears what Maureen would think of her—she disliked Lucretia leaving Cam in Wonderland already. Surely, she would leave if she knew what Lucretia did to her own family.

So Lucretia says nothing and listens to Maureen speaking about her plans for anti-gravity.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_I sent one of my agents through Raven’s Roost. I promise, I don’t spy on you too often, but there was a rumor of the Oculus in the area._

_I wonder what poor Robbie thought of me dropping my cup when he mentioned the marriage of one Magnus Burnsides to a woman named Julia._

_A wife. I honestly don’t know what to say. Congratulations, I suppose. I wish I could have been there. But then again, I suppose you might wonder who that old lady was, standing on the edge of the crowd. _

_I wonder what kind of woman your Julia is; surely, she is wonderful, and I hope she makes you happy. I hope she makes you so, so happy. You’ve earned this, Magnus. Your happy ending._

_-L_

* * *

 

For Magnus’ wedding, she arranges for a beautiful rosewood tree to grow and then collapse near Raven’s Roost—a good tree for him to carve, she thinks. She’s seen the way that Magnus has gone out of his way to collect good wood for his work, in the past. And now, he is a carpenter. Not a wandering star-traveler, not a man who throws himself recklessly into the path of danger, knowing he’ll be back a year later.

He’s a carpenter and a husband, nothing more.

And he’s so, so happy.

* * *

 

_Magnus, ~~~~_

_~~I heard about Raven’s Roost~~ _

_~~I heard about Julia~~ _

_~~I heard~~ _

_~~I’m sorry~~ _

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_I went to the grave today._

_It was foolish and sentimental, maybe. Certainly, Maureen has been giving me strange looks all day. You were already gone, of course. I’ve heard you’re in Neverwinter, finding work as a sell-sword._

_But I went to the grave._

_It’s beautiful, Magnus. The flowers you carved are beautiful. I used a few spell slots to enchant them, to protect them against wear and weathering._

_I’d promised myself not to interfere in your lives. But I don’t want you to be alone. Merle is also in Neverwinter now, preaching the word of Pan on the streets, and adventuring on the side. I should be able to arrange a job for the two of you._

_It won’t be much, but it will be something._

_-L_

* * *

 

Magnus’ skill as a carpenter has only grown. The flowers he’s carved for his Julia’s grave are breathtaking. She touches the petals and appreciates the polish, the grain. She sketches them twice, once for her journal, once more for her letter to Magnus.

She sinks spells into the grave, into the flowers, into the headstone. No grave robber will disturb Julia Waxmen-Burnside’s grave. The weather will not wear down the stone or the flowers.

Magnus will blame himself for not being able to protect Julia. The least Lucretia can do is to protect the grave.

Maureen pours her a glass of wine when she gets back. “How many spellslots did you use?” She asks, her mouth a disapproving line. She knows better than to ask what Lucretia had been doing. She’d seen the look on Lucretia’s face when she’d left.

Lucretia sighs. “One of my old allies from the Relic Wars needed my help.”

“You erased yourself. They wouldn’t know who you are,” Maureen points out.

“That didn’t matter,” Lucretia drinks her wine, and watches as Davenport sits in a window, staring up at the stars with wonder in his eyes.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_Somehow, you two found Taako. Of course you did. You always manage to amaze me._

_Do be careful out there._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucas tells her that Maureen is dead over the sending stone and Lucretia feels herself go cold.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Lucas,” she says automatically, bottling up her own grief. What does her grief matter, in the face of his loss? Never mind that she wants to demand how this could have happened, never mind that she wants to crack right down the middle like a stone. Could she have saved Maureen, if she’d been there?

She’s just lost the oldest friend she still has. The person who’s known her the longest.

She turns to Davenport, who looks sad at the loss. She hangs up the sending

Lucretia hugs him tightly, even though she knows it’s not him, not really, and she weeps.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_I wish you could have been here to see this._

_Fisher had a baby. _

_It’s beautiful, Magnus, they’re so beautiful._

_And it might just be the solution to the dilemma that I’ve been facing._

_Maybe I’ll see you soon._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia watches Fisher and the baby swim in their tank.

“They’re beautiful,” Johann says.

Lucretia thinks about the cave full of Voidfish, and about Magnus leading her into that cave, and the pure joy he’d carried with him.

The baby is smaller than Junior had been, even then.

She touches the tank, and they both sing.

An ancient carved wooden duck sits at the bottom of the tank, waiting to be played with.

“They are,” she agrees.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_I don’t know how to do this._

_Did I make a mistake?_

_One of my people got their hands on the Philosopher’s Stone yesterday. They turned an entire forest to diamond. Boyland, Carey, and Killian put him down, but in the process, the stone was lost. One of my best Reclaimers, dead._

_No one can resist the thrall of the Relics, it seems._

_I’m running out of options. Barry hasn’t been seen in far too long, Lup is still in the wind, and Davenport is unable to go on missions. I need you. All of you._

_I… I’m afraid I might have made a mistake._

_If I inoculate you… you wouldn’t help me. You’d all made that clear. You won’t listen to me._

_But I might not have a choice._

_I miss you. All of you. I think Fisher misses you too—they’ve been throwing their ducks around the tank in a fit for a week now, singing loudly. Johann has no idea what to make of it._

_I need to do this, Magnus. The Gaia Sash resurfaced last week, and a dozen people died in the resulting hurricane. It was lost at sea, but it will wash ashore somewhere. Our relics have caused nothing but death and destruction._

_We once promised we wouldn’t sacrifice lives for a cheap victory, but look at the damage we have unleashed on this world! One of my projects for the Bureau has been to compile a list of those who have died either fighting for the artifacts or were killed by them. It’s… a very long list, Magnus. It’s less now that the wars have stopped, but every now and then, one of them comes back to haunt us. The Sash, the Stone, and the Oculus are the most common: The Bell is safely in Wonderland, you hid your Chalice well, the Gauntlet vanished with Lup, and well… my Staff remains with me. ~~Sometimes I wonder if I’m enthralled by the staff~~ I am  determined to stop this. The shield will work. It must. _

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia stands in front of her friends. Magnus looks so _old,_ she thinks: he’s covered in scars, and he looks battered and aged. He’s no longer the fresh-faced boy with a black eye that she’s seen a thousand times.

Somehow, she realizes, staring at him in wonder, he’s aged in a way that goes beyond what a hundred years had managed to do.

He’s _changed_ and that terrifies her.

She welcomes them to the Bureau of Balance, pretending it isn’t breaking her heart.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_Seeing you in front of Fisher again…_

_~~I’m so sorry~~ _

_~~Fisher won’t sing when I’m in the room anymore.~~ _

_It is so good to have you here. You fight… differently. It’s like looking back in time, watching you all fight. I hadn’t quite realized how much of your skills you’d have lost. I’ll have to put off sending you to Wonderland, even if it is the only Relic that we know the exact location of._

_Davenport has been in a strange mood lately. I wonder if he knows that something is about to happen…_

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia hates their blank looks. She hates the way that she’s a stranger to them. It’s her own fault, she knows, but she hates it She wants to fall to her knees and weep.

They’re _here_ , and they don’t know her, and the gaping hole in her heart screams in pain anew, all the worse for ten years of festering in isolation and their suffering.

She sets her expression to serene and dignified and shoves down her hurt. One last grand lie, one last great wrong to inflict upon her family, all in the name of saving the world.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_You realize the dogs will literally run off the moon, right? Please stop trying to smuggle chihuahuas in your armor._

_-L_

* * *

 

She watches as they flourish, here at the Bureau. They torment Leon, they befriend Carey and Killian, they get drunk with Avi, and it makes her smile, in a way she can never let them see.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_Carey showed me the duck you carved for Killian today. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe it._

_No one else remembers the ducks, now. I gave those memories to Junior; I was afraid that Johann might make a connection. Fisher was furious at me for taking their ducks, but I gave them to Junior and told them this, which seemed to calm them down a little._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia loves them all, she really does.

However, it seems that absence makes the heart forget the absolute scale of the chaos that her friends are capable of causing.

When Lucretia walks out of her office one morning to see that Magnus has set up a picket line with the demand of “dogs on the moon,” she nearly breaks down laughing.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_ No dogs on the moon. _

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia learns that Magnus has taken a level in rogue.

She has to stop to think about that.

The end result has her burying her face in her desk as she realizes that Magnus Burnsides now knows how to pick locks.

If he ever remembers who she is, she will lose every prank war for the rest of her life.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_Why are the three of you so determined to be mean to Angus? Honestly, he’s a bright, brilliant boy, and he looks up to all of you. I know you’re goofing, but he’s a child, no matter how brilliant he is. He looks up to you. _

_-L_

* * *

 

Angus McDonald is an unexpected gift. He can fill in the holes in the narrative, put it all together and find locations and details that none of her seekers ever have put together.

He found them while being inoculated. His is a mind that Lucretia has never seen the likes of.

Lucretia smiles at him, and thanks him for the work he’s done.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_I found a duck in Fisher’s tank today._

_It took everything I had not to cry in front of Johann._

_I’m glad the two of you are becoming close again—I should have known that you wouldn’t let that stop you. You never would. Your family is your family, no matter where you find them._

_Maybe that’s why the three of you didn’t run when you met Barry in the lab. Maybe some part of you knew him, and even all my warnings couldn’t dissuade your instincts, honed over that century, to trust Barry Bluejeans._

_Fisher is happier, now that you’re visiting more often. They’re playing with the duck like they used to. Johann says they’re singing more lately as well. I’m glad._

_-L_

* * *

 

Lucretia thinks that they’re ready.

Or, at least, as ready as they can ever be.

They’re running out of time: the Hunger’s been scouting and she’s been counting the days. The Animus Bell is the last one left, and she needs it to complete her spell, she needs it to solve all of this.

She thinks about Wonderland and goes cold.

She just hopes she’s prepared them enough for what’s next.

* * *

 

_Magnus,_

_~~I take everything back, I should never have sent you to Wonderland~~ _

_~~I should have gone myself~~ _

_~~What have I done?~~ _

_I shouldn’t even be writing this. The Bell is here. I can finish this._

_But I owe you this much, Magnus._

_Farewell old friend. I hope you find happiness on the Astral Plane._

_-Lucretia_

* * *

 

Magnus tells her about Cam, and it’s like something Lucretia hadn’t even realized was intact shatters.

She cries. She knew what she had done, but she had been _sure_ he was long dead. It’s been ten years. Lich magic was clearly more powerful than she had realized, if they could keep him alive as a head. She puts her head in her hands and feels the tears fall down her face, hot and heavy and itchy and exhausting. She’d barely been able to manage a few short rests since the Hunger, and exhaustion is warring at her.

“I’m leaving,” Magnus tells her, once she’s done crying for a man she has no right to mourn.

Lucretia’s fingers tighten in her robes. She doesn’t let her hurt show on her face. Magnus is the only one of the IPRE crew still on the moon. She’s known he wouldn’t stay, not forever, but it still hurts.

“Where to?” She asks. “Raven’s Roost?”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m... it’s time to go home. Put new flowers on Julia’s grave. I’m sure the ones I carved for her are gone by now.”

“They should be fine,” Lucretia says, before realizing her slip. 

Magnus stares at her.

Lucretia shifts in her seat, carefully unclenching her fingers from her robe so she can fold them on her desk. “After I… heard, I went down to Raven’s Roost to investigate. I saw them and… I enchanted them.” Lucretia hates speaking out loud sometimes. Writing is so much simpler—she’s better than she used to be at speaking, after ten years running the Bureau, but she still isn’t comfortable with people the way Magnus is.

She keeps her letters to Magnus in a little wooden box, along with a handful of strange carvings she’s collected over the years. She takes them out of her desk and hands it to him. “I… I explain better in these.”

He leaves after that, but he comes back the next morning, enveloping her in a hug that smells of leather and wood polish.

“Thank you. For Julia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magnus leading a protest to have dogs on the moon is a headcanon that I hold near and dear to my heart, as he is absolutely a union man. 
> 
> Next up is Taako, and the finale!


	6. Taako

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Wow this ended up being longer than I expected. 
> 
> For Taako, we're mixing things up a bit, but I hope you guys still enjoy! Thanks for reading, and double thanks to everyone who's taken the time to leave a comment while I've been writing this! <3

Taako sees Lup going through some letters one day, when she and Barold are visiting. He wanders over and grabs one randomly off the pile. He recognizes the gentle curves of the handwriting easily, and sees _red_.

Taako, like all of them, had taken turns filling in for Lucretia on the cycles when she’d died. He’d filled in his parts of the journals, picking up where her handwriting had left off. After a _hundred years_ of that handwriting, he could recognize it anywhere. (He’d seen letters from the Director and hadn’t thought a thing, because she wasn’t anyone _important_.)

“Why is she writing to you?”  He demands. Lup snatches it back before he can rip the letter into tiny pieces, like he wants to.

“She did it while I was gone.” Lup picks up another one, keeping a careful eye on him, as if making sure that he doesn’t take a fireball to the table. It’s tempting, he has to admit, but he wouldn’t do it, because she’s the one who can spell shape, not him, and he’d _never_ hurt Lup. “It’s… enlightening.”

Taako fumes. He fumes even more when he sees Barry has his own stack of letters, annotated in red ink, stacked neatly on the desk in the house that Taako has been sharing with the Reapers Three whenever they’re not out in the Astral Plane.

“I think they helped her,” Magnus says when Taako goes to visit him to rant about it. _His_ letters are scattered across his kitchen table, weird carvings weighing them down like paperweights. He’s holding one of them in his hand, looking at it strangely. “Talking to us.”

“Whose fault is it that she _couldn’t_?” Taako snaps. He doesn’t _get it_ , how they’ve all forgiven her. As if it wasn’t _her_ fault. Sure, they don’t hate her, he understands that, because yeah, okay, maybe he doesn’t hate her anymore. But there’s a difference between not hating and _forgiveness_ and he doesn’t understand how it is that they’ve managed to find it.

Magnus shrugs. “Hers. She knows it. But she still missed us.”

“She doesn’t deserve too!” Taako throws his hands into the air. “We didn’t get to miss _her_. We didn’t even bet to miss each other!”

Magnus shrugs again.

Merle just pours him a cup of tea. Outside, the sea crashes against the beach. The _kids_ , the kids who are only just learning to call him “Uncle Taako,” even though they should have been doing it their whole lives, are playing on the shore. “I dunno, I thought they were interesting.”

Taako calls Davenport on his Stone of Farspeech that night, because if anyone could understand, it would be him.  

“It’s just what she does, Taako. You cook, Magnus carves, she writes. It’s… comforting.” Davenport is in some far away place, exploring the world. Taako has a postcard from him in his pocket, describing the kind of spiced tea that a port town specializes in. He’s seen postcards pinned to Magnus’ walls and Merle’s, and read Lup and Barry’s out loud to Kravitz.

He wonders if Lucretia gets postcards. He wonders if she keeps them in a scrapbook or something—it’s been over a decade, maybe she picked up scrapbooking.

“Well, why didn’t she write to _me_ then?”

The words surprise him, so he hangs up before Davenport can respond.

He turns that thought over and over in his head, trying to understand it. He doesn’t _care_ what she thinks of him. He doesn’t _care_ that she didn’t try to offer him an explanation, not like the way that she’s offered everybody else.

Some small, rational part of himself that sounds weirdly like Merle, points out that he’s been avoiding Lucretia.

To spite that particular part of himself, he makes sure to kick a fucking tree and tell Mavis and Mookie an embarrassing story about their dad which he definitely embellishes a little. It’s kind of hard to horrify a couple of kids who know that their dad has died a shit ton of times and are aware of his proclivities towards plants because Lucretia’s journals got broadcasted right into their brains, but Taako has never let a little thing like that stop him.

He decides to take matters into his own hands, because talking to Lucretia about his feelings is absolutely overrated, no matter what Kravitz says.

He breaks into the new Bureau of Balance headquarters, which is much easier now that it’s not on the moon, and raids her office, pointedly ignoring the portrait of all of them hanging on the wall. It’s fully restored and he _hates_ how happy they look. Because they were young and stupid and didn’t realize how everything was going to go to shit and it’s not _fair_.

“Taako? What are you doing?”

Lucretia looks better, he has to admit, now that the Hunger is passed. She’s not younger by any stretch of the word, but she looks less tired, less wary. The dark circles under her eyes which he had for over a year dismissed as nothing have faded away. She’s letting her hair grow too. Not as long as it ever got on the Starblaster, but it’s no longer cropped short like it was when he’d met her once again for the first time.

He scowls and turns to face her, faking a grin that he knows she’ll see right through. “Hear you’ve been writing letters. Wanted to see what you’ve got to say for yourself.” There’s an unspoken challenge there, and they both know it.

Her faces goes blank. “Bottom left drawer,” she says. She waves a hand, and some sort of magical protection dispels.

It’s a lot of paper, all covered in thousands of lines of that same, careful handwriting. They’re tied together with a neon pink ribbon.

Lucretia stands there, leaning against an ordinary staff, and she looks older once again. The world seems to be resting on her shoulders, and Taako should care, but he doesn’t, he _doesn’t_ , because she doesn’t deserve his pity.  

Taako storms out, with the letters under his arm and goes to the school.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_“Sizzle It Up with Taako” is a bomb-ass banger of a show. I went in disguise and sat in the back, just in case. Your act was inspired. It was great to see you back in the kitchen, and the bits I got to taste were magnificent._

_You seemed perfectly at home in the kitchen, which was great to see._

_I wonder though…_

_Do you ever notice that the van is large enough for three? My plan was for you and Lup to be a double-act, with Barry as your driver. That might be a bit cruel to Barry, yes, to be relegated to that role, but he and Lup would be near each other. I have no doubt that the two of them would have fallen in love again. How could they not? A century of love can’t just be erased. It’s part of why I separated the rest of you. But at least the three of you would be together. He’d have sent in an application for the University in Neverwinter, so he’d at least have that option, but… I doubt he’d have left Lup._

_But even without them, you seem at home there, using alchemy in the kitchen, all flashy and bright. You shine like a sun, in that place. I’m so glad, Taako._

_-L_

* * *

 

It’s not the first letter, but it’s the first one that matters. Taako throws it down and tries to think back to his caravan, thinks about Sazed, who _he’d_ hired, not Lucretia, and he tries to think.

Lup and him both in the caravan, elbows brushing against each other in a space not quite large enough but not caring, because it’s each other. Cooking and laughing, using magic and flare and showmanship in their creations, travelling and never stopping in one place for too long.

Barry, with them, awkward and hesitant like he’d been before he’d known them, slowly getting talked into magical conversations, being a bit of a nerd, flirting with Lup, slowly, painfully slowly, falling in love in the most ridiculous way possible.

Taako shoves the thoughts aside, because it had never happened. Instead, Barry plunged off the Starblaster, killed by Taako, and Lup had been stuck in an umbrella for a decade, while Taako had been alone in that caravan.

He’d been alone and he shouldn’t have been, and Lucretia _knew that_.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_I hear you’re a hit in the Underdark. Of course you are. I hope you’re enjoying your newfound celebrity._

_There’s still no word on Lup. I’m looking, Taako, I promise, and the moment I find her I will bring her back to you._

_-L_

* * *

 

Seeing Lup’s name written in Lucretia’s careful handwriting is more painful than Taako had thought it would be.

He should be mad, he thinks, about Lucretia spying on him. Keeping an eye on him, like she _cares_.

He’s not though. He just grabs the next letter and keeps reading. He’s not sure why he’s even reading them, because it’s not like they’re going to _change_ anything. He knows what she’s done. Her feeling _sad_ about it doesn’t matter.

Her loneliness does not undo his own.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_~~I’ve heard about~~ _

_~~I can’t believe~~ _

_~~You’d never~~ _

_~~Glamor Springs was a~~ _

_When I first heard about Glamor Springs, I sent someone to investigate what had happened. I… I can’t quite believe that it’s actually happened. I know it was not intentional—you’re many things Taako, but I know you’d never kill with your cooking. But an accident… it just seems so unlike you that I can’t wrap my head around it._

_You’re a wanted elf now. I can almost hear the jokes we would have made about it once, but it was always different, when we’d known that they’d never see us again after the end of the year. You might be running for the rest of your life._

_I considered writing up a version of events and feeding it to the Voidfish. I could give you a fresh start, let you begin from scratch._

_But…_

_The only reason I could do it so effectively the first time was that I knew the material so well. My journals were the story of our adventures—your anecdotes about the mongoose language were there, Lup’s doodles were in the margins, there are entire sections written in Magnus’s handwriting because he didn’t believe I was doing the story justice. Even your history before our adventure, I knew well enough to be able to edit around, because we’d had a hundred years to get to know each other. I knew every detail. I knew what I was doing, and I could handle it all with immaculate care. _

_I don’t know what happened to you, those years wandering Faerun as a wandering chef. I have broad strokes, but with work like this, I’m terrified of what would happen if I slipped up. If I’m too ruthless, someone else could end up like Davenport. If I’m too sparring, you could end up being wanted but not know why._

_As much as it pains me to admit it Taako… you’re a stranger to me now._

_And I can’t afford to spare the resources that it would take to learn your story well enough to do that._

_I’m sorry Taako. I really am. I just wanted you to be happy._

_-L_

* * *

 

Taako stops reading, after the letter about Glamour Springs. He gets up and shoves them in a desk he never uses, because he doesn’t _need_ a desk, he mostly just have one because Magnus carved it for him and it looks pretty fucking sweet, and then he goes into the kitchen and makes all of Lucretia’s favorite dishes out of spite and then he feeds them to the Bone Squad, ignoring Lup and Barry’s looks.

Lup finds the letters that night. “So you went to see her?”

“Yeah,” Taako says.

“Did you two… talk?”

Taako throws himself onto the couch—not the comfy sofa thing that Barry bought and won’t let him get rid of, but the _proper_ couch, the one that’s for fainting and dramatic flinging.

“No,” he says, once he’s in proper position.

Lup drops the letters on his face, because she’s a _terrible_ sister like that.

“Read them,” she says unsympathetically. “I know it’s hard. But I think it will help.”

“Help _what_?” Taako wants to say.

But Lup asked him too, so he keeps reading.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_When I heard you had found Merle and Magnus I laughed until I cried. Avi thought I had lost my mind._

_I’m so glad you’ve found them again._

_-L_

* * *

 

“Yeah, well, whose fault is it that I didn’t have them?” Taako mutters, flipping the page.

On the back, she’s sketched a view of the Moon Base from her office. It’s just a quick doodle—Lucretia’s a really fucking good artist though, so it’s good.

He stares at it, and he’s shocked to realize that he _misses_ that place.

How fucked up is that?

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_I’ve done a lot of damage, haven’t I?_

_It’s taken me a while to realize just how much removing Lup from the equation has changed you. But it has, irrevocably, completely, and astonishingly. I’ve never known you to be like this; it’s like you’re harder, angrier, somehow. I don’t know if I even have the write words to describe it. You trust less. You were always lonely, but now, it feels infinitely greater. You walk around like there’s a gaping hole, a void that can’t be filled, or even grieved properly._

_It’s only now that I realize that maybe removing Lup wasn’t a mercy. In my year alone, the pain was so much that it was crippling. I wished so much that I could just forget, so I could do what I needed to do, because the pain, the grief, was just too much._

_I have never believed the adage “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”  If I had realized how long it would be, maybe I would have made a different decision. But I had no idea that it would take me a decade to even get one artifact besides my Staff. _

_I should have let you keep her, I see that now. It’s too late to change it, but I can see that now. Even though she can’t be here, I should have left her in your story. I guess, somehow, I was always so focused on not seeing you as two parts of a whole that I failed to realize that being separate people didn’t mean that you didn’t need each other._

_I’m so sorry Taako._

_-L_

* * *

 

Taako throws the letters across the room. The ribbon is undone, and as a result the paper goes _everywhere_ , individual sheets floating across the room and Taako just stands in the middle of it all, breathing heavily and trying not to cry.

The Death Trio are gone, checking out a rock band that’s possibly a necromantic cult or just is really into a skull aesthetic, and so Taako’s alone, in the house, and he wants to call up Lucretia and give her a goddamn piece of his mind.

It’s not right, he thinks, falling to the floor. Paper crinkles underneath him, but he doesn’t care.

For a century, it never _mattered._

They’d all been sold out before, been betrayed, been stabbed in the back—sometimes literally. They’d died, they’d lost, they’d been screwed over, but it hadn’t _mattered._

Because the rest of the world _didn’t_.

All of those other worlds, none of it had _counted_. They were dust. Why should Taako care if dust betrayed them? They were at best, impermanent and at worst, dead.

Taako didn’t _need_ them. Sure, he’d _liked_ some of the people over the years, but they hadn’t _mattered_. And so what if they didn’t like him? So what if they betrayed him? So _what_?

There had been six people who did, who were there for him. There wasn’t just Lup, anymore. There were six other, ridiculous, dumb, stubborn assholes who were there for him and _cared_ about him.

Lucretia _mattered_.

She mattered, and she’d done this anyways.

She’d left him alone.

And _that_ …

That counted.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_Do you really have to be so mean to Angus? All of you are, honestly, but that boy looks up to you so much._

_-L_

* * *

 

Taako goes to clean up and he doesn’t intend to read any of it, because clearly, what more could there be to say after that?

He looks down at that one, and swallows.

They’re all out of order now, randomly scattered across the room. He can’t help but look at them as he gathers them up and read Lucretia’s notes. There are doodles and recipes and a watercolor portrait of him and Lup. There’s mission debriefs and descriptions of whatever stupid shit she caught Magnus or Merle doing.

He gives in and puts them back in order to keep reading.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_The Grim Reaper?_

_-L_

* * *

 

“Shut up,” Taako mutters, but his mouth twitches.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_It’s all my fault, isn’t it?_

_The Hunger is coming back, and I’m not sure that we can stop it. I don’t know if we can get all the artifacts in time._

_And Barry and Lup’s warnings about the side effects of the shield…_

_I have doubts, Taako._

_I can’t stand that. I’ve done too many horrible things to have doubts now. If I have doubts, it means I did all these things for nothing. Everything I’ve sacrificed, everything I’ve done, I did for a reason. It must be for a reason._

_But look at what I’ve done to you—my family, my friends._

_Would that disaster in Glamor Springs had happened if you’d been aware that you didn’t have a second person that you were used to, checking your work as you went? If you were the full, powerful wizard that I’d known during our century together, rather than someone who is still unravelling the true extent of his arcane powers?_

_Would Merle’s marriage have collapsed if he’d had a century of wisdom and peacemaking to draw upon? Would Magnus have lost his wife if he had all his skills as a warrior and protector?_

_These questions haunt me. I tried to give you all happy endings, but did I end up robbing you of the tools you needed to maintain them? You were all heroes. You deserved happy endings, you deserved the world to be kind to you._

_You are going to hate me when you remember, I know that. I deserve that. I deserve all of it. I’ve done horrible things in the name of pursuing my goals, but what I’ve done to all of you… that’s the unforgivable._

_But does that matter? I can’t bring myself to saying that I wouldn’t do most of it again. I would have changes, yes, but… the wars over the relics needed to be stopped. That I know, in my bones. There were far too many dead, Taako._

_But of course, I can’t say if it will be worth it or not until the shield spell works or doesn’t._

_If it works…_

_It will have been worth it._

_Right?_

_-L_

* * *

 

Taako stares at the letter for a long, long time.

He reads it over and over again, trying to think of what to… well, _think_.

Because…

Yeah, Lucretia has a good point.

She’d made them worse. Irrevocably, worse. They’d lost purpose, they’d lost their kindness, their bonds to other people, they’d lost a century of lessons learned and skills painfully gained. She’d stripped all of that away and gone off on her own, determined to fix the mistakes that all of them had made.

Taako crumples up the letter again, then slowly straightens it out, because he needs to reread it.

He stares.

Lup was in the umbrella before Lucretia had fed Fisher the journals.

He thinks about her, scrying over and over again, until she collapsed from exhaustion. Taako had never even thanked her, because he was too busy trying to find her as well. She’d been looking.

Over and over again, in her letters, she’d promised him that she’d been looking.

How would they have found her? How long would it have been for them to track down Wave Echo Cave? And would they have looked in the umbrella, or made assumptions that she was… elsewhere, like Lucretia had? It had taken Lup _months_ to gain enough strength to try to message him.

Would Magnus have met Julia? Taako’s visited the grave, walked through the town of Raven’s Roost, rebuilt and in its glory, and now he wonders what could have brought Magnus to that town, made him stay. He’d led a revolution, and he’d fallen in love and gotten _married_ and yeah, maybe he could have saved Julia if he’d been like he is now, but…

She had died while Magnus was gone. Taako knows that story. It had taken until after the Hunger, but Taako knows the story.

And he and Merle went out a few months back and found this Kalen and finished things, because Lucretia was right about that, at least.

Magnus had _earned_ that happy ending.

They all had.

Merle had earned a life on the beach, but… Taako doesn’t know that he agrees with Lucretia. Merle was _still_ learning to be a dad, and he had _no_ idea what he was doing.

Taako tries to think about the world, where Lucretia never did what she did. He thinks about wars, and the Relics blowing shit up, about the way that all of them had been… withering, in those months. Lup had been gone and there was no trace of her and…

Taako doesn’t know if that would have been a better world.

* * *

 

_Taako,_

_I was right I guess._

_I can’t believe you’d handed Lup right over to me and I hadn’t realized it. If I had just thought, I might have been able to free her from that. _

_I don’t know what it would have changed, but I could have answered that question so much faster._

_The world is saved. I was right, but I was wrong, and I don’t…_

_I keep trying to think of how we could have gotten here without this, I really do. I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. I’m not trying to justify it. I deserve every ounce of your hatred. I don’t expect you to ever read this post-script, this final letter, this epilogue._

_The Hunger is defeated. We finally can move on with our lives._

_I just wish the cost hadn’t been quite so high._

_I’m not even sure what to do with these letters. You don’t want to come near me, and I am trying to respect your wishes. But it feels wrong, to never send these letters. To never give you at least the chance to have the answers to some of the questions you may have._

_I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it._

_But I just want you to know that you are my family, and I love you still, even though I know you want nothing to do with me._

_-Lucretia_

* * *

 

Taako goes to see her.

“This doesn’t make it right,” he tells her. She’s sitting in her office, because there’s no throne room in the new Bureau of Benevolence. Lucretia’s still dramatic, sure, because this office is fucking bombastic as fuck, but now she doesn’t need a giant fucking staircase or a base on the moon. Taako’s not sure where she’s channeling all of her extra, but it’s probably around somewhere. Maybe there’s a secret passage or something. He’ll ask Angus, Angus would have found a secret passage in the first week.

Lucretia looks at him in surprise. “You read them.”

“Of _course_ I did,” Taako says with a lightness he doesn’t feel.

“Taako,” she says. “I know it doesn’t matter. I know what I did was unforgivable. It’s not fair, I know, that your happiness was collateral damage to save the world.” Grief, Taako realizes, is deeply set into her face. She’s _old_ , she’s fucking _old_ , she’s way older than him, and that feels _weird_. “I know that nothing can ever make amends for that. You deserved so much better, Taako.”

“Yeah,” Taako says quietly. “I did.”

She bows her head and lowers her eyes, and Taako drops the letters onto her desk.

They’re not her letters. They’re written on Kravtiz’s fucking emo stationary. She looks up at him, startled.

“Doesn’t mean you don’t deserve better as well,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fucking cool with it—but you know. You kept looking.” He swallows, his throat tight. “That… that matters.”

Lucretia carefully undoes the ribbon—he’d found the ugliest, frilliest, laciest ribbon he could, and then transmuted it to make it _worse_.

Pages upon pages of letters explode outwards, because Taako had rigged a tiny bit of a spell on there, and Lucretia picks one up.

“Lucretia,” she reads. “So I made some weird pumpkin cake thing that nobody likes and I know now it’s because you’re the only person who likes it and I never could figure out why I’d keep making it even though I kept telling myself I’d change the recipe. Dash, Taako, you know, from TV.”

She looks up at him, her eyes large and watering, pressing the letter against her chest like it’s something precious.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

Taako shrugs. “Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he says. “I’m still mad at you.”

But he meets her eyes, and finds himself smiling.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Lucretia's relationship is completely and utterly fascinating to me, and I just really want them to manage to become okay with each other. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @[secretlystephaniebrown](http://secretlystephaniebrown.tumblr.com/).


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